Wait, weren’t the tax cuts supposed to bankrupt the country to benefit the rich? It almost looks like the tax cuts — which took effect in January — are paying for themselves. That wouldn’t be fair, either. As the CBO notes, the new payroll withholding scheduled hadn’t fully taken effect in January; companies don’t have to update their employee tax withholdings until the middle of this month. When that happens, monthly revenues from individual income taxes will likely slip. But the latest CBO report does show how a growing economy can make up a lot of the difference between the...

Not only did Mitch McConnell just give Schumer everything he wanted on budget and health care, he ensured that for the remainder of the year, Democrats can get everything they want and conservatives will not pass a single priority. Not one. snip McConnell is planning to introduce debate in the Senate on immigration next week by putting forth a blank bill with nothing in it. He will then allow anyone to offer amendments, and, in his words, “whoever gets to 60 wins.” snip The GOP platform has become a free-for-all. The only ones who don’t get blank checks are conservatives....

The T-Mobile SuperBowl commercial #LittleOnes contains only 77 words. But those words summarize the divisiveness and dehumanization of the progressive left and unloads them onto babies. The voice-over monologue is godless political pablum served up to build anger and selfishness in the next generation. The ad shows a circle of nine infants of different races, all about three months old. A soft female voice says: Welcome to the world, little ones. Yeah, it’s a lot to take in but you come with open minds and the instinct we are all equal. Ashley Rae Goldenberg at the Media Research Center has...

PHOENIX — Hopis and Navajos who work at a coal mine near the Arizona-Utah border said Tuesday their family lives and earning power will suffer greatly if the power plant fed by the mine is shuttered as planned. The Navajo Generating Station in Page is set to close at the end of 2019 unless a new owner can be found. That’s considered a long-shot, but the company that owns the supply mine says it has identified investors interested in one of the largest coal plants in the West. More than 200 workers, their family members and supporters in blue T-shirts,...

As the chief architect of modern Las Vegas, and a visionary who didn’t understand the meaning of subdued, Steve Wynn spent more than three decades luring visitors to the Strip with his opulent hotels, fantasy-filled casinos, fine dining experiences and luxe shopping. But now, the question on everyone’s mind is: What is the $18 billion Wynn Resorts casino and hotel empire without Steve Wynn? Hours after an unscheduled meeting of Wynn Resorts’ board of directors on Tuesday, Mr. Wynn, a 76-year-old billionaire, suddenly resigned as the chairman and chief executive of a casino conglomerate that stretches from Las Vegas to...

CVS Health will increase employee pay and sweeten benefits to some employees using a portion of the company's windfall from the new tax law. CVS will boost starting pay for hourly employees to $11 per hour from $9 per hour, starting in April. Pay ranges and rates will be adjusted for many of its retail pharmacy technicians, front store associates and other hourly retail employees later in the year.

Four million people dropped off the food stamp rolls in one month, according to the latest numbers on food stamp enrollment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The latest USDA data show that the number of participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the government program that administers food stamps, dropped from 45,666,795 in October 2017 to 41,658,868 in November 2017 — a staggering decrease of 4,007,927 over one month. Even though there was a temporary spike in enrollment, mostly concentrated in a few states that caused the national average of food stamp enrollment to spike, nationwide enrollment...

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, dropping to its lowest level in nearly 45 years as the labor market tightened further, bolstering expectations of faster wage growth this year. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 221,000 for the week ended Feb. 3, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims fell to 216,000 in mid-January, which was the lowest level since January 1973. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 232,000 in the latest week. Last week marked the 153rd straight week that claims remained...

The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit gave us an interesting glimpse of the future last week when it ruled on an obscure case involving government pension obligations. Ever since the mid-1990s, police officers and fire fighters in the town of Cranston, Rhode Island had been promised state pension benefits upon retirement. But, facing critical budget shortfalls over the last several years that the Rhode Island government called “fiscal peril,” the state legislature voted to unilaterally reduce public employees’ pension benefits. Even more, these cuts were retroactive, i.e. they didn’t just apply to new employees. The changes...

House conservatives on Wednesday revolted against a massive bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling and bust spending caps, complaining that the GOP could no longer lay claim to being the party of fiscal responsibility. “I’m not only a ‘no.’ I’m a ‘hell no,’ ” quipped Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), one of many members of the Tea Party-aligned Freedom Caucus who left a closed-door meeting of Republicans saying they would vote against the deal. It’s a “Christmas tree on steroids,” lamented one of the Freedom Caucus leaders, Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.). “This spending proposal is disgusting and reckless — the...

In late 2011, a 16-year-old girl from suburban St. Louis landed her first job as a waitress at a local IHOP restaurant. She needed to work there for at least a year to complete her high school co-op program. At first, it made her uncomfortable when her boss repeatedly complimented her appearance. Within a few months, his behavior made her terrified to go to work. The Illinois teen's fear of getting fired — and not graduating on time — led her to put up with escalating sexual harassment from the restaurant's general manager, according to allegations described in federal court...

California will block the transportation through its state of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs, officials told Reuters on Wednesday, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters.

Sentencing is scheduled for April. 20 – coincidentally, a celebratory day in cannabis cultureIn a guilty plea deal, the Miami Lakes man who hid $22 million of suspected marijuana trafficking funds in five-gallon buckets will keep $4 million, his home, his hydroponics garden supplies store and five Rolex watches. Luis Hernandez-Gonzalez, 46, on Wednesday pleaded guilty in federal court to money laundering and structuring bank deposits to avoid the federal government's reporting requirement, known as smurfing, his attorney confirmed to NBC 6. Marijuana trafficking and other charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement. The June 2016 raid on...

Use of the devices in criminal trials is fairly new and controversial.New technology purchased by the San Diego Police Department to detect the presence of drugs including marijuana in drivers was used during a fatal hit-and-run investigation Saturday in Paradise Hills. The Drager 5000 is a device that detects cannabis, cocaine, methadone, methamphetamine, prescription drugs and other controlled substances in drivers. On Saturday night, a Paradise Hills couple was on their evening stroll a few yards from their home when a driver, who was allegedly high on drugs plowed up onto the sidewalk and ended the 67-year-old man’s life....

In the “old days,” when good news was reported, the Stock Market would go up. Today, when good news is reported, the Stock Market goes down. Big mistake, and we have so much good (great) news about the economy! 9:59 AM - 7 Feb 2018

New Jersey on Monday became the latest state to implement its own net neutrality rules following the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the Obama-era consumer protections. Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed an executive order prohibiting all internet service providers that do business with the state from blocking, throttling or favoring web content. “We may not agree with everything we see online, but that does not give us a justifiable reason to block the free, uninterrupted, and indiscriminate flow of information,” Murphy said in a statement. “And, it certainly doesn’t give certain companies or individuals a right to pay their way...

South Korea’s national spy agency released a statement saying that North Korean hackers might be behind the Coincheck heist, Bloomberg reported. According to Japan Times, a source familiar with the matter said Tuesday that the recent break-in into the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc., which saw $520 million worth of digital coins stolen, might have been orchestrated by the rogue Koran state.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has announced a deal with Senate Democrats to fund the government and set spending levels for defense and nondefense programs over the next two years. The legislation would avert a government shutdown on Friday, when federal funding is due to expire, and boost defense and nondefense programs. It also lifts the debt ceiling to March 2019, which White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hailed as a decision that would move Congress away from "crisis-to-crisis budgeting." The deal is backed by McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and will almost certainly be...

One of the great myths of American politics, no matter who is president and no matter who runs Congress, is that our infrastructure is Â“crumbling.Â” Barack Obama repeatedly warned us about our Â“crumbling infrastructure.Â” Donald Trump now tells us that our infrastructure is Â“crumbling.Â” The next president is going to hatch a giant plan to fix our crumbling infrastructure, as well, because most voters want to believe infrastructure is crumbling.The infrastructure is not crumbling. Ask someone about infrastructure, and his thoughts will probably wander to the worst pothole-infested road he traverses rather than the hundreds of roads he drives...